Bees taking over the beer world?

Wed, 06/20/2012 - 10:48am

I'm in Rehoboth for a pub brew with Tim and Ben today. We are doing the second test batch of Birra Eutrusca today: the Ancient Ale we are doing with our pals Leo, Teo, and Dr. Pat. We did the first batch with Birreria brewer Peter at Eataly NYC a few week ago. That batch has already been casked and goes on the beer engine late this week or next week at the roof top Birreria Brewpub.

Test batch brewing.

The batch we are doing in Rehoboth today will be very similar. We bumped up dark grains a bit by adding some chocolate malt and we bumped up the tree resin and gentian root as well.

Italian honey from Italian bees.

Pound for pound, the most expensive ingredient in this beer, more than the hazelnut powder or pomegranates, is this here organic Italian Chestnut honey. It's worth it; minty and earthy and powerfully flavorful. So distinct from the Ethiopian honey we use in Bitches Brew and the orange blossom honey we use in Midas Touch. Man, those bees are really good beer makers. In fact when there was that massive bee disappearance a few years ago some folks blamed a freeze and others blamed GMO crops. I think what really happened is the bees stopped producing straight up honey and opened 4 square-inch Nano Breweries in every corner of the world.